I have 110K on my car now and I doubt that anything has been done to the transmission. It still works fine and is on the stock clutch but its just not as silky smooth as I remember it being when my car was young.

What are all the maintainence items that I can get done to a 5spd tranny?

 

Other than tearing it down for inspection, Redline is the only thing I can think of. BTW, those headlights look great.

 

Change fluid. Oh yeah, good idea to get lab results make sure you dont have excessive metal in there. Also check for leaks and any play in drive axles.

 

Change fluid and take sample of old stuff to have analyzed. Redline is not the only option

Eric has a very good point about checking for play due to bearings.

BTW, if you're going to change the clutch shortly, don't do the fluid until then, it will all be drained again.

 

any good instructions on how to change the fluid?

is there any way I can analyze the clutch wear without taking apart the tranny? I don't want to change the clutch if I still have a lot of life in it.

 

No way that I know of to see how much life clutch has left without taking a peak.

I copied these from some of the FAQ's on how to change the fluid:

The first step to changing the manual transmission oil is to jack up the front end of the car and reinforce the lift by adding a pair of jack stands.

NEVER GET UNDER THE CAR WITHOUT FIRST MOUNTING JACK STANDS.

Now get under the front end and look up. On your left side (with your feet sticking out in front of the car), you will see the transmisison. Now look at the farthest back part of the transmission and you'll see the shift linkage, which has a long black metal rod coming out of it and going up to your shifter lever. This bar has an "accordian-like" looking attachment to the transmission. Now look at the [absoulte] right face of the transmission, about six inches in front of the shift linkage you'll see a small bolt. This one's a sleeper -- it's the drain bolt for the whole tranny. For reference, this is the bolt that is somewhat covered by the OTHER long black metal bar coming from behind. (That's the "support rod" according to my 97 Nissan Maxima service manual).

So the first step is to get an oil collector pan under the car and open that drain bolt. It's not that long, so be careful when twisting it off. Once you've got all the oil drained out, close it back up. Remember, give it a long time to fully drain, as you want to get rid of as much of the mineral-based OEM oil as you possibly can. Once you've re-installed the drain bolt, you must relocate yourself to fill the tranny. Look at the [absolute] front face of the tranny and you'll notice a large threaded bolt about five inches from the right edge of this front face. This is the fill *and* check bolt. (The "check" function won't be utilized until after we lower the front end back to the ground). This bolt has a 1/2" square female connection, so to open it you must utilize a 1/2" square ratchet. Completely remove this bolt from the front side of the tranny. Then you must figure out how to get the Redline MT-90 into that hole. I think the bottles' nozzles are too short to do it directly... you'll probably have use some kind of pump.

Now, you may have reazlied that you have no way of knowing when the tranny is "full" because the car is tilted backwards and all the oil is going to the rear-end of the tranny. You are indeed correct. That's why you should SLIGHTLY OVERFILL the tranny while its' still raised. I think that 4.8 quarts would probably be a good amount to pour in at this time. Then get out from under the car and remove the jackstands. Then put a [SHALLOW] oil drain pan under the front side of the transmission and slowly lower the car on top of it. Since the hole in the front face of the tranny is designed to be exactly at the optimal level of the oil, all the overfilled oil will pour out through that hole, slide down the side of the tranny, and fall into the oil drain hole. When this is finished, raise the front end again and mount the jack stands. If no oil came out, put in some more MT-90 and repeat the last step. Then re-install the fill/check bolt in the front side of the tranny, and clean off the oil that came down the front face of the tranny.

Now remove the jack stands and lower the car. You're done.

 

Is it just me, or does it seem like the Nissan engineers were smoking some good **** when they designed our tranny? I don't think I could've found a more tortuous place to put that damn drain plug!

I had a hell of a time getting it out. In fact, it never came out. I just kept rounding it off. Instead, I pulled out the gear selector sensor (as instructed on Motorvate). It was the only thing I could do aside from dropping the tranny and having at that drain plug.

Just wanted to let you know that, in case you can't get your drain plug out. I found it very easy to drain using the gear selector sensor. The only problem I can see with this method, is that you could damage the o-ring on the sensor. Aside from that, I can't see any harm in doing it (unless you bang the sensor around in the process).

-Sryth...
__________________________________________________ ____________________________
'98 SE 5spd, Pebble Beige, PRCAI, Stillen Y, Stillen FSTB, ACT clutch.
Pacesetter STS to be installed this week!

 

HOW ABOUT SEARCH? NEWBIE.

Haha j/k. You know if you were a newbie you'd get that answer. But no, you have to have a 14.2 n/a max, so you're god.

 

If you spray the bolt liberally with WD-40 and let it sit for while. Wipe it off an put a 12mm box wrench on it. I've several cars that way for NE people no problem.

 

Where can I buy some redline mt-90 oil online?

 

Use these instructions from Steve Cutchen's MaxFAQ;

http://home.earthlink.net/~maxfaq/ma...ce.htm#redline

Make sure to get a 1/2" ratchet and if you don't use redline MT-90, make sure the tranny fluid is GL-4, not GL-5.

EDIT: you can get RedLine MT-90 here;

http://myoilshop.com/MTF.html


DW

 

Also I forget who had it but if you do a search long enough there is a discount code on the forum floating around. It can save ya some cash.

SuDZ

 

What car has a nice set of head lights

but for real what kind are they?

we have projection lights now for our cars?

 

Do we need about 6 quarts of oil?

 

Buy 5. It takes about 4.5 quarts.

Also, I used the instructions posted on here to change my fluid about 2 weeks ago. They were very helpful. Thanks guys! Just a little tip. If you don't have a pump to get the oil into the tranny you can just use a funnel with about 2 feet of clear tubing attached to it. Takes a little longer but its pretty easy.

 

Check this out.
http://www.vbxmaxima.8m.com/mtoil.html

btw, love watching your video against that IROC Z28.

 

They're S4 lights ... he posted about them a while back ... guess he still hasn't gotten the new grille/side body work done ...